


night sky with exit wounds

by Nanoochka



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Post-episode: 1x09, Potential spoilers for 1x10, References to Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 23:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18226748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanoochka/pseuds/Nanoochka
Summary: Michael has shared all of his secrets with Alex. All but one.





	night sky with exit wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Snippet based on the promo video for episode 1x10, so this contains spoilers for everything up until then. Originally posted to Tumblr [here](http://nanoochka.tumblr.com/post/183677168310/battlemalecs-why-are-you-showing-me-this-alex). I just had to get this out of my system before the actual episode airs and likely rips our hearts out all over again.
> 
> Title from Ocean Vuong.

Alex and Michael are silent as they walk side by side back to the ladder out of Michael’s lab. It’s tense, awkward in a way it never has been before with them, both dragging their feet, and when Michael risks a look at him, Alex’s face is serious and unhappy, a deep furrow between his brows no joke or double entendre will ease.

This is why Michael has always avoided sharing too much about his childhood, even with Max or Isobel. Bad enough that he told Isobel about how he used to run away to the ranch where their ship crashed. She’d grown up with a happy home and a family; he could tell, then, she didn’t understand, had no idea what it was like to be unwanted, cast off, untouchable. Never belonging to no one and nowhere. Michael’s learned to keep his trap shut about it because the idea of anyone pitying him makes his stomach turn.

Alex pitying him is maybe the worst thing of all. Poor abused orphan kid. Poor tortured alien who just wants to go home. Surrounded by the detritus of a life in among the stars he can’t so much as remember, shit he’s spent over a decade collecting obsessively, Michael must look pathetic.

At the foot of the ladder, Alex hangs back, clearly working up to something. Michael recognizes the shifty eye contact and the way he keeps opening and closing his mouth, drowning himself in all the things he wants to say but can’t. Won’t. Michael just wishes he would. Wishes he would just let it all come pouring out and put them both out of their misery.

Rolling his eyes and unable to stand it any longer, Michael stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He turns to face Alex with an exasperated stare. “Just say it, Alex.”

The look Alex shoots him is bewildered, eyes shining large and dark in the dim lighting of the lab. “Just say what?”

Michael pulls his hands from his pockets again to gesture, a bit wildly. “That you’re sorry. I know the look, man. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you, you deserved better, etcetera, etcetera.’ Heard it all before. So let’s just get it over with and we can go back to pretending like nothing’s changed.”

Through Michael’s tirade, Alex’s face goes from confused to angry. Not annoyed or perplexed or exasperated, but _angry_ , so angry that tears gleam in his eyes and his lip has started to tremble, struggling to contain everything. He takes an aggressive step forward, getting in Michael’s face. It’s startling enough that Michael backs up half a step until his back hits the ladder.

“Do you think I pity you?” he demands, looking about two seconds from grabbing the front of Michael’s sweater and shaking him hard. “I am _furious_ about all that shit happened to you, and you _did_ deserve better. But do you look at me, knowing everything my dad put me through, all those years of hatred and abuse, and feel _pity_?”

Michael glowers at him. Something about Alex’s outrage has always been contagious, like they’re nothing more than a spark and a match around each other. Max is the only other person who can set Michael off this quick, but the difference is Michael and Max are always in danger of immolating each other when tempers flare. With Alex he’s used to them starting a very different kind of fire, the kind that catches and burns and burns and burns.

“I’ve never pitied you,” he spits back. “I want to kill your father for what he did to you. What he did to _us_.”

“Then why would you think this would be any different?” Alex does grab the front of Michael’s shirt, not to push or pull, just to hold on. He’s so furious that Michael can feel him shaking. “I want to hurt every single person who’s ever hurt you. Who stood by and let it happen. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t know, and that I never did anything to help.”

A complicated mess of emotions overwhelms Michael in a wave. Despair, anger, hopelessness, everything he locked away but has still somehow managed to spill over into adulthood, the rest of his life. He locks his hand around Michael’s wrist.

“You did help,” he answers, voice so thick he can barely get the words out. Michael swallows. “You’re the only one who ever tried.”

Max and Isobel, they never knew the worst of it. And yeah, he knew they felt bad at the time that Michael was homeless and broke, tried to make up for it by hooking him up with leftovers or hand-me-downs or milkshakes and burgers at the Crashdown, the kind of stuff kids would think might make it better when they didn’t know what else to do and their hands were pretty much tied to do more. Michael loved them for that and always would, but it never quite closed the chasm that existed between him and them, the feeling that he’d always be on the outside of their perfect lives, looking in.

Out of everyone, Alex was the only person who saw what Michael needed. A safe place. A home. He’d given Michael that without hesitation. Never stopped to think or care what it might cost. Like Michael, fuck him, was _worth it_.

Michael can’t and won’t say any of that out loud. It’s too much, even with how much he’s already poured his heart out today. He feels so raw and exposed that the thought of moving again makes him ache. Alex is safety to him. He is, no matter how much other crap is between them. But even safety can hurt sometimes.

The tears Alex has been trying to hold back finally escape. His anger escapes with them, and his face crumples, frustrated and upset and helpless like he’s seventeen all over again. For the first time in a long time, Michael lets himself feel it too, and he pulls Alex close. He rests their foreheads together when Alex puts his arms around him in a crushing, desperate hug. Michael clings back just as fiercely.

“I should’ve done more,” Alex whispers, holding him tight. “I don’t care who you are or where you’re from. You were just a kid. We both were.”

“You did the most,” Michael answers. Alex’s face is warm to burning against his palms, then beneath his lips when he presses them against Alex’s cheek. He’s still cupping his face when he pulls back to look at him, when he brushes Alex’s tears away with his thumbs. “You were everything. First and last place I ever felt like I belonged was with you.”  

After a second Alex blows out a trembling breath and closes his eyes. Nods. Michael hears the unspoken _“Me too.”_

_We just—we connected. Like something—_

_—cosmic._

Reluctantly Michael kisses Alex’s forehead, lingers there awhile as the realization dawns that he doesn’t know what they will be walking into when they emerge back into the light. Down here where it’s dark and quiet, secrets can breathe, take on lives, possibilities of their own. But he and Alex already closed a door on something once when Alex went to war. Or they tried to, for how well that worked out. Michael can’t help but wonder if this will be just one more thing for them to lock away as the real world greets them again. Seal it away in this tomb along with the rest of his hopes, glimpses of a different life and what might’ve been.

“C’mon,” he whispers and lets go of Alex, though only far enough to hold on to his hand a second longer. “You should be getting back.”

Alex doesn’t ask back to where, doesn’t immediately make a move to go either until Michael leads him toward the ladder. He hesitates with a fraught look until Michael offers a weak smile and nudges him up. As he follows him back to the surface, Michael lets the sadness and frustration show on his face where Alex can’t see. Allows himself that. It’s not much, but it’s something. And it’s what he needs to do if he’s going to stay anywhere in Alex’s life the way he really, really wants to. Needs to.

They climb back up to the too-bright daylight and the quiet emptiness of the junkyard, silent except for the wind rattling the hubcaps Sanders tied up in some random and questionable attempt at decoration, the rustle of old tarps in the breeze. Alex still hasn’t lost his perplexed expression as he offers Michael a hand the rest of the way up. He looks pretty much the way Michael feels inside, and even with everything screaming inside of him to shut the fuck up and just leave it like this, let the past be the past, Michael hesitates and and then reaches for Alex’s arm.

“Listen,” he begins. For once Alex looks at him head-on, eyes shifting from black to a warm, rich brown in the sunlight, and Michael’s the one having trouble holding his gaze as he ruffles the back of his hair. “I… I need you to know I meant what I said when you first got back into town. About how nothing’s changed where I stand.”

Alex just stares at him, unmoving except for the way his lips part, just barely, the way the wind catches his hair too and teases it over his forehead.

“You were right that I loved you for a long time,” Michael barrels on. If this train is about to go over a cliff, it’s picking up speed. He can’t stop it now that the words are coming, but Alex takes a step closer, and Michael matches it, reaching to meet him across the chasm. From somewhere he finds the strength to meet Alex’s eyes. “I still do.”


End file.
